It'll post, but won't boot up.

[slickslack]

My computer runs Windows XP, and I've had it since the year 2005.

The last time I ran my computer was in May of this year. It worked flawlessly. Then I moved out of state with my friend's family, and had to store it in his garage until we moved again just recently.

The computer made it safely, but somehow, the power cord has gone missing. So we bought a replacement power cord from a bin of cords at a nearby computer store (it's probably used).

Came home, plugged in the monitor, and powered on the computer (without bothering to plug in the keyboard, mouse, printer, etc.), and it loaded the same desktop I remember seeing back in May! But oh no, the keyboard wasn't plugged in. Plugged it in, and nothing happened. (That's right! It wasn't plugged in on startup! It hasn't been recognized yet!) With the keyboard still plugged in, I added a DVD to the disc drive, and restarted the computer. (Wanted to watch a DVD, now that the computer's up and running again.)

THE PROBLEM ARISES:

Now the computer will post, but won't fully boot up to the desktop screen. After posting, the screen remains solid black. Did the DVD have some sort of flash nonsense that wouldn't allow the computer to boot itself? Was it because the keyboard was plugged in?

Removed DVD from disc drive, and tried again, to no avail. Unplugged keyboard, to no avail. Set BIOS so that the computer would boot from hard disk instead of CD Rom. Nothing worked. Even tried a roommate's power cord, to see if perchance that could possibly be the problem. Popped in the system restoration CD, and it only restores .txt files, and maybe a few other very basic files. Everything else gets an error message saying they can't be restored, and the only option is to push OK.

Sooo, what's the problem here? (And what exactly caused it?!) Did the hard drive just crap out on me? Is it a battery? (Oh, and the little battery light on the front of the tower stays on after posting, now, too, by the way.)

Also also: I'm wondering if ~150 degrees F is average for the CPU temperature, and if 2.9V is an average battery voltage?

 

[Ric0h]

Maybe too dusty?
Clean it up man.

Its prob overheating because of too much dust in there, so it shuts down.

if not fixed, just re format everything.

 

[kagekitsune]

try clearing your CMOS by removing the battery for at least 10min or if the mb has a cmos jumper reset use that. could be something you installed it didnt like.

 

[slickslack]

yeah, i went and dusted it after making that initial post.

and i'm pretty sure my friend already reset the CMOS with the jumper reset thing.

OH AND i finally got it to do the system restoration using advanced settings, but after getting to 100% it restarted and gave me a dialog box that said to eject the CD after startup [OK]. i did that, and it went back to the black screen i'm used to seeing after the post. it was as if the system restoration was just ... lost.

 

[Baez]

What PSU do you have?

 

[slickslack]

well, i can see the bar code and the S/N beneath it is:

142809-04080174496.

i did a google search for that number, and it returned no results. i can also see the letters TBC, but i'm not sure if that's the make or some pseudo-FCC corporation symbol?

since the power unit is crammed in there between the motherboard and all the other stuff, that's all i can manage to read on it.

 

[Ventriac]

it doesn't appear it has anything to do with the bios....
Tell me you tried re-installing windows
If so, than switch out the harddrive and put in another one and try to is reformatt windows on that.

 

[slickslack]

sorry to double post, but the computer specs are:

powerspec 6340:

AMD 64 CPU Driver

nVidia Chipset Drivers

nVidia Video Drivers

Realtek Audio Drivers

Aztech PCI Modem Drivers

Realtek LAN 8xxx Drivers